Editorial: What we talk about when we talk about widening participation

What we talk about when we talk about widening participation

Lyndsay Miller

There’s a typical image of the widening participation undergraduate student: a plucky lad or lass fresh from the council estate, in possession of a fierce young mind and the wrong sort of vowels, who is thrown into the baffling world of elite education. This veritable fish out of water, polished into a peer of their upper middle-class classmates by graduation, goes on to secure a white-collar job, and the financial success that goes with it. But how does this reductive stereotype hold up to the realities of 21st century Britain? Is it possible that what we talk about when we talk about widening participation does not, perhaps has never, reflected the complex and nuanced realities of making English Studies more accessible to the wider populace?

My own experiences would certainly suggest so. I grew up and attended primary school in what would now be classified as a Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD) quintile 1 postcode – the most deprived. I was the first person in my family to attend university, where I studied English Literature. So far, so stereotypical. But – and here’s the rub – I won a scholarship to a private secondary school and that intervening period between primary and tertiary education irrevocably altered the trajectory of my educational path and life. Some might argue that the fish out of water stage simply came earlier (and, let me tell you, it certainly did) but the reality is far more complex than that. While I found the doors to the country’s best universities wide open to me, the situational aspects of my background continued to shape my experiences. I did homework, and then coursework, on a commuter train because home was chaotic and unpredictable, and I had informal caring responsibilities. Because of this, I felt unable to take up the place I’d earned at my first choice institution 200 miles away. I chose the university closest to home so that I could continue to support my family. Rifts that had emerged during my secondary schooling, when it was only my wool blazer and Latin classes that alienated those closest to me, deepened into divisions when it became clear that I would go to university and study a subject that didn’t obviously lead to that holiest of grails – a job. By opting out of hard work done with the hands or the body, I became unknowable.

My experiences of working in widening participation over two decades, in some of the UK’s most deprived areas, reflect this dichotomy. Education opens doors and minds, but it can constitute a heavy burden – financially and otherwise. For students from widening participation backgrounds, it often leads to a sense of rootlessness as they become what Alfred Lubrano calls ‘straddlers’, people who inhabit two distinct spaces while belonging to neither.^[1] Rarely is the path through an English degree a straightforward, linear process for these students. While there are multiple paths into an English degree, the journey through and then out of the academy is not always linear. The British Academy’s comprehensive 2023 study, English Studies Provision in Higher Education, notes that ‘while widening participation programmes have been successful in creating more diversity in the student body, universities have not necessarily provided the required mechanisms for support once those students have arrived.’^[2] In practical terms, this means that students may pause their studies, repeat a year, or drop out entirely. Even the key terminology – widening participation and widening access are the prevailing terms used in the UK, although first-generation has become more common in recent years – is problematic.[3] Taking such a broad approach lacks the nuance required to represent the breadth of the multifarious, intersecting identities of widening participation students. Shifting patterns of global migration and displacement, Brexit, and deepening inequalities across the UK following fourteen years of Conservative rule have led to a changing landscape. Similarly, factors such as urban sprawl, housing supply, and changing demographics in the lower centiles, have comprehensively altered the pool that universities draw from with their various access initiatives.

That is all to say, widening participation students are not a monolithic group and are drawn from far and wide, across the rich weft and weave of UK society. Yet the key terminology does not reflect this variety. The Scottish Funding Council references students from ‘the most deprived areas’ in the country, while the Scottish Framework for Fair Access references ‘people from disadvantaged backgrounds’.^[4]  The UK government tacks on ‘lower income households and other under-represented groups’ to the latter descriptor.^[5] These definitions, largely echoed by the Welsh Assembly and Northern Irish Assembly and Executive, are necessarily vague, encompassing an entire country’s worth of students.[6] There is an inherent assumption built into the term ‘widening participation’ that, once a student has passed through the newly widened gates, the job has been done. Stacey Mottershaw argues against its use as a ‘deficit narrative’, which places ‘the problem of accessing higher education with individuals’ rather than the ‘inequalities which have been baked into the system’.^[7] Language, which we as English educators are best placed to recognise, is impactful, and its role in raising aspirations and increasing access is not to be overlooked.^[8]

A key question for us practitioners is how do we approach these issues from a discipline-specific viewpoint? What are we widening, and for whom, and for how long? What does it mean to widen participation in a discipline that has seen dwindling enrolments year on year?^[9] The reasons for this decline cannot be attributed to one factor, but instead a complex interaction of possibilities: ever-increasing fees, the growing perception of English as an elite subject driven by the political climate of the culture wars, and the perceived lack of ‘value’ in Arts and Humanities degrees.^[10] Moreover, this decline is not confined to university. English Literature A Level participation has dropped by approximately 26% in the past decade, meaning that fewer often-left-out individuals are opting to study English beyond the compulsory stage.^[11] There is clearly a need to widen participation in the subject at all levels, yet widening participation in its strictest sense focuses largely on Higher Education. This is a folly, but one that is being challenged sector-wide, as many contributors to this edition of the newsletter show. Kathy Halliday, GCSE resit teacher at Barnsley College, and Sarah Kruschandl, Head of English at Burgess Hill Girls, each present timely case studies of their work in Secondary and Further Education. Kathy examines the nonlinear progress of GCSE resit students and considers the nature of progress itself. Many of her students come from atypical educational backgrounds and experience serious challenges and barriers to attainment. In this piece her passion for the subject and dedication to her students shine brightly, as does Sarah’s in her account of invigorating the secondary curriculum. Her approach sees students read texts that ‘represent global voices’, take field trips, and enjoy visiting speakers from an array of professions and career paths, with one commonality: all are English Studies graduates. As well as energising the classroom, Kathy and Sarah take a holistic approach to the various exit points from the discipline, focusing on the skillsets students take with them as they leave the discipline. Their approach goes far beyond literacy, energising students to become critical readers, thinkers, and speakers.

These approaches suggest a future for widening participation in English Studies that support students on a case-by-case basis, treating students and their situations individually rather than collectively. Given that ‘English Studies graduates develop vital skills for employers in a changing UK economy [which] include advanced critical thinking and communication skills, creative approaches to problems and comfort with ambiguity’, the urgency of such work is clear.[12] The purpose of this newsletter, and the webinar that preceded it, is to gather together accounts, examples and case studies of best practice from across the UK. There is a wealth of sensitive, attuned and passionate work being done in schools, colleges and universities across the country, which is enriching the lives of communities, and opening doors to hitherto inaccessible qualifications, experiences and lives. James Bainbridge, the Director of the University of Liverpool’s Go Higher programme, writes about the foundational work it has contributed to the North-West and beyond over the last two decades. Go Higher ‘represents a different way of thinking about what university education can be’ by changing the very ‘terms of entry’ to a degree programme, a common theme in the work of many contributors here. Jennie E. Owen, a Lecturer and Staff Tutor in Creative Writing at the Open University, reflects on community engagement projects in Barnsley and Lancashire with traditionally left-out groups. Her work with primary school pupils, SEN college students, and library users, presents a blueprint for running impactful creative writing sessions that enlighten participants to skillsets and educational destinations that they never knew existed, inspiring them to pursue further opportunities.

This expansive approach is equally evident in Hannah Lavery, Paulette Johnson, and Charity Reed’s article, which details the Open University’s innovative programme of reciprocal mentoring, Access, Participation and Success Virtual Student Internships. This scheme partners staff, like Hannah and Paulette (both Senior lecturers) with students like Charity (a current Masters student in Creative Writing) on various projects, such as the development of a Black Students’ Network. This allows staff to learn about the lived realities of the OU’s wide variety of students, to inform policy and practice, while giving students practical work experience that enriches and enlivens their professional prospects. Employability is also the focus of Emma Lennox’s article. Emma, a career consultant at Queen’s University Belfast who works primarily with students from the school of Arts, English and Languages, details the specific conditions and challenges that mature students face when studying for degrees. She astutely maps effective routes for practitioners in Higher Education to support mature students and lays out an easily replicable five-point plan to ease their transition to the workforce. This focus on vocational contexts is picked up by Anne Reardon-Jones, an adult literacy educator working in Wales. Anne presents a case study of her teaching in work-based learning, which she calls ‘the forgotten sector’ for widening participation. Indeed, we rarely if ever talk about widening participation out-with the three-tier education system in the UK. Anne’s examination of upskilling adults in English (and Welsh) language skills is a timely reminder to look beyond, and outside of, these parameters.

The final word on the possibilities and futures of widening participation has been reserved for those truly on the frontlines: students. Siobhan O’Connor, a Masters student in English Literature at University of Glasgow who began her studies on the university’s widening participation summer school (where I had the pleasure of teaching her), considers how such courses function as liminal spaces that allow students a period of adjustment from civilian to student life. She considers the summer school as a space for growth and exploration, rather than a frustrating box-ticking exercise. Finally, Emily Sheppard and Harvey Wiltshire, alumnus and department lead, respectively, of Royal Holloway’s foundation year, both caution against the ‘one size fits all’ approach that is too often the standard approach to widening participation initiatives. Emily notes that ‘true widening access would involve much more detailed consideration of each student’s individual circumstances’, with each student treated on a ‘case-by-case basis’. Foregrounding the soft skills that English Studies develops in the process of admitting widening participation students, such as criticality and communication, and supporting them in, through, and out of their programmes of study, allows us as practitioners to more effectively achieve equitable practice. The sensitive, emotionally intelligent approaches gathered here exemplify a holistic methodology that is indicative of the inspirational work being done across the three levels of the sector, which is changing and enriching lives.

Dr Lyndsay Miller currently teaches English Literature at the University of Glasgow International College. She has worked in widening participation roles at the Glasgow Caledonian University, the University of Glasgow and the University of Nottingham, most recently teaching on Glasgow’s English Literature Summer School. As a first-generation student and academic, she is committed to improving access and creating fairer and more equitable pathways to English studies qualifications at all levels of education.

 

^[1] Alfred Lubrano, Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams (New York: Wiley, 2005).

^[2] British Academy, English Studies Provision in Higher Education, June 2023, p. 48.

[3] A comprehensive discussion of the terminology around this topic would be a fulsome piece in its own right. However, in brief, the British terms ‘widening participation’ and ‘widening access’ are increasingly falling out of favour, and the predominantly US term ‘first-generation’ or ‘first-gen’, meaning someone whose parent or caregiver did not attend university, is becoming more common (see, for example, Universities UK’s 100 Faces campaign and Alaya Holloway’s FirstGens non-profit).

^[4] Scottish Government, Framework for Fair Access, May 2019, <https://www.gov.scot/policies/universities/fair-access-framework/>, accessed on 10th November 2025.

^[5] Susan Hubble and Anna Connell-Smith, Widening participation strategy in higher education in England, 24th January 2018, <https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8204/>, accessed on 12th October 2025.

[6] Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills, For Our Future: The 21^st Century Higher Education Strategy and Plan for Wales, 2009; Department for the Economy, Access to Success, 2012.

^[7] Stacey Mottershaw, ‘Why we need to stop using the term widening participation’, HIgher Education Policy Institute,17th December 2021, <https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2021/12/17/why-we-need-to-stop-using-the-term-widening-participation/> accesed on 1st November 2025.

^[8] David Wooley, The pervasive belief in low aspirations could undermine the Government’s ‘reboot’ of widening the doors to higher education’, Higher Education Policy Institute, 2nd December 2021 <https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2021/12/02/the-pervasive-belief-in-low-aspirations-could-undermine-the-governments-reboot-of-widening-the-doors-to-higher-education/> accessed 15th September 2025.

^[9] In England, enrolments on English Studies degrees fell by 29% between 2012 (when fees were increased to £9000 a year) and 2021. During the same period, enrolments increased by 12% in Scotland (where undergraduate study is free for home students): British Academy, 2023, p.7.

^[10] Research suggests that an uninspiring GCSE curriculum and closed book exam, as well as  the A Level’s focus on 19th century literature, has led to this state of affairs: English Association, The Decline and Fall (?) of A Level English, 2023, <https://englishassociation.ac.uk/how-do-we-best-express-the-value-of-english-studies/>, accessed on 11th November 2025.

^[11] English Association, The Decline and Fall (?) of A Level English.

[12] British Academy, English Studies Provision in Higher Education, p.7.